


Dont Work Too Hard!

by Kestral



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Girl's night, TI SPP 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9780053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestral/pseuds/Kestral
Summary: Dont (and Batty probably) decide that they need to show Inien a good time! Pity there's not much to do on the Shrouded Isles.





	

Inien was surprisingly good company, at least in Dont's opinion. Once you figured her out, she was easy to talk to.

Okay, no. Dont paused to revise her thought as she watched Inien and Colvin talk at each other. She had not come _close_ to figuring Inien out. She had merely learned that Inien, like all humans she had met, loved to push the big red buttons and watch the explosions. Inien simply went for the metaphorical buttons, and once your buttons stopped being interesting, talking to her started being pleasent. 

Dont had gained no understanding of Inien, her buttons just weren't very explode-y. 

Inien and Colvin decided they were finished saying things at each other for the moment, and Inien returned to her territory behind the bar. "Can I get you two anything?"

Batty stared at Inien until Inien refilled her cup. She stared a little longer for good measure.

"I'm fine!" Chirped Dont. "Look, my glass is still half full, see?"

Inien nodded. She got out a jar of olives and started eating directly from it. "So, should I tell you another one of my patented bartender stories?"

"Oh! The patent office got back to you?" 

Inien grinned. "Yes, yes they did."

"You know what we should do?"

"Are you going to suggest that we should cel–"

"We should celebrate!"

Inien sighed.

"Come on!" Dont squealed slightly. "Batty, you agree with me, right?"

Batty slowly turned her masked head so that the dark holes that hide her eyes could stare directly into Dont. Her knife flicked open.

Dont had no idea what this meant.

"Yup!" She said anyways. "We're taking you out somewhere!"

Inien rose her eyebrows. "Even if I were to agree to this, which I want to be clear that I have not, where would we go? We are literally in the only bar within a day's travel."

Dont thought back to what she had done with her free time before this old bar had been reopened as Nine Shrines Adventures and Dines. She had baked, yelled at Kyr, removed Kyr's inventions from Ishir, and there was always game night at the community center. None of these were good ways of taking Inien (and Batty) out. Batty was bored by baking, Kyr now had other people to bother, and Inien was banned from game night after somehow cheating at spirit-bingo.

"See?" Inien said in response to Dont's silence. "We are in the middle of nowhere, and my friends all left me here while they disappeared to go on some adventure."

Dont's ears pricked up and her back straightened. She needed to get Inien out of the bar and somewhere having fun. This was  important , and not only because she didn't trust humans when they got bored.

"We could go see if anything's at the Flower Theater tonight?"

"I'm the bartender," Inien swept out her hands to indicate her small kingdom. "If anyone was putting on a performance, I would know about it."

Batty put the back of one hand against the forehead of her mask and leaned back slightly. She held the pose for a moment before popping upright, raising both hands into the air. Quickly she opened her hands from loosely closed fists to open palms, fingers spread wide. Her knife tumbled through the air, but she caught it by the blade before it did any damage. She twirled it idly, but Dont assumed that was not part of any pose.

Inien looked at Dont for a translation, so she took a stab at it.

"You are sulking, and some fresh air and starlight will do you good."

Batty crossed her arms, and Dont know that she had mistranslated. At least that gesture could be interpreted as giving Inien a stern look.

"Maybe it only appears that I'm sulking because you think that stating the simple fact that there is nothing to do on these islands means that I'm in some need of rescuing from my own dark psyche, but let me impress on your overly cheerful," Inien spat the word like it was an insult," pigbat brain that I do not need to get out of the bar more often and nothing is wrong."

Batty came to Dont's defense by taking the pose of the flipped bird, but Dont didn't need that defense.

"So prove it." She leaned across the bar and raised her eyebrows.

"Excuse me?"

"Prove you're not sulking! Come with use to the Flower Theater tonight and we'll have fun!"

Inien squinted at her. "You know that wouldn't prove anything, right? You're not that stupid."

Dont shrugged. "So don't prove anything and come to the Flower Theater."

Inien took a moment, then rolled her eyes. "Fine! Whatever. Hey Colvin!" She shouted. "I'm taking the night off!"

"I will hold the fort!"

"Yes!" Dont pumped her fists in the air, then transformed to do the traditional pigbat dance of triumph. Batty did not join, but took the pose of the "Good job, friend."

Dont returned to her bipedal form so that she could bump her own fist against Batty's outstretched one, as she assumed was custom.

 

The sun was beginning to get low in the sky as the three of them crossed the bridge to Talthir. The once abandoned settlement bustled with life as the new residents finished their day's work. Dont was surprised by how civilized humans could be. She'd heard from Kyl'il that long, looong ago, humans and spirit-folk had lived in harmony, but she hadn't really believed it.

Dont almost suggested that they go to the west side of the island to watch the sun set over the sea, but it had been hard enough to get Inien this far, complicating the plan could be disastrous. Plus Batty was making a bee-line for the stage.

Batty. Dont understood her even less than she understood Inien, but she felt with Batty that she had to keep up the appearance that the two of them understood each other perfectly. Pigbats ought to stick together, she had decided. She hoped that Batty agreed.

Inien, in her own way, was a font of information. Far from an open book, true, but something was there. What Dont knew of Batty she had learned from others. How long had it been since Batty had seen the Sea of Clouds? Did she ignore many of the pigbat customs because her identity as one of the Ban had changed how she saw their importance, or had she never learned them? Was she an exile like herself, or could she be on this plane for some other reason? She either didn't want to talk about it, or was talking about it frequently and Dont simply couldn't understand her.

The sweet scent of the Flower Theater wafted up to their noses, and all three breathed in deeply.

Dont leaned towards the ground as she slipped from one form to the other. The world always seemed to be the thing shifting, although she knew that it her that got smaller. Her four short legs met the ground, the soft grass tickling her stomach.

She stuck her face into a flower and heard Inien snort.

"What?" She craned her head up to look at the human's amused face. "You find something funny?"

"I'm just once again marveling at how incredibly strange the universe is."

"It is true that we pigbats are complex and fascinating creatures." Dont let pride color her tone. Pigbat pride. Beside her, Batty also snuffled the flowers, her knife clutched between her teeth.

"Indeed." Inien smirked about something.

They all took a moment to take in the scene.

"I told you that there wasn't going to be a show tonight." Inien gestured at the stage. On it a group of skeletons painted set pieces for some upcoming production.

Dont wiggled noncommittally. "We can still hang out here."

Inien flopped onto one of the stone benches. She stared at Dont and Batty, and stared the skeletons that were hard at work. "How did I, a witch of my power, end up here," she muttered.

"You came by boat," Dont said helpfully.

"Yes, that I did," Inien sighed.

"Well, I packed a picnic dinner," Dont pulled out the picnic basket she had been carrying. The scent of fresh bread rose from it, mingling with the flowers.

Inien's eyes went wide. "How?" She whispered.

This time Dont didn't answer. She very smugly didn't answer. Getting a surprised reaction from _Inien_ of all humans was something to treasure.

As Dont struggled to open the latch on the basket and Batty trotted about spreading a picnic blanket, Inien sighed once more, looking up as the first stars began to twinkling in the deepening sky.

"I guess it is a nice evening to be out."

"Yessssss!" Exclaimed Dont, although Inien would never know if the joyful shout was because she had finally admitted to this little break from the bar being pleasant despite all her initial protests, or if it was because Dont had finally undone the latch using only her little pig feet.


End file.
